MUSG

MUSG, or the Multi-User Shared Graphics system, is a software package developed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the 1970s. It was designed to facilitate the sharing of graphics hardware among multiple users in a time-sharing environment. MUSG allowed users to create and manipulate graphical images on a central computer, which would then be displayed on their individual terminals. This system was particularly useful in academic and research settings where multiple users needed access to expensive graphics hardware.

The architecture of MUSG consisted of a central graphics processor that managed the display of images from multiple users. Each user's terminal would send commands to the central processor, which would then update the display accordingly. This approach allowed for efficient use of hardware resources and enabled users to collaborate on graphical projects.

MUSG supported a variety of graphical operations, including drawing lines, circles, and other shapes, as well as more complex operations such as scaling and rotating images. It also included features for saving and retrieving graphical images, making it a versatile tool for both simple and complex graphical tasks.

Despite its innovative design, MUSG faced challenges in terms of performance and scalability, particularly as the number of users increased. However, it laid the groundwork for future developments in shared graphics systems and contributed to the evolution of computer graphics technology.